


the things you'll do for love

by thegirl



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Community: valar-morekinks, F/M, Gender or Sex Swap, Genderbending, Genderfuck, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-10-01 07:31:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10184063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegirl/pseuds/thegirl
Summary: The day that Robert Baratheon came to Winterfell, Arry saw Samson’s face fall when he laid eyes on the Demon of the Trident. Arry understood why – this was not the Adonis of a man that her father had described when he told them all stories of his youth in the Eyrie. Samson had always clung to those stories: he wanted to be as honourable as their father, as strong as Robert Baratheon, as good as Jon Arryn. Joanna joked sometimes that he would find a good living as a singer, with so many dreams of nobility and war.Prompt: I would love to read something where Cat and Ned have two legitimate sons Sansa and Arya, three legitimate daughters, Robb, Bran, and Rickon, and Ned's bastard daughter Jon. All the children have similar personalities to their book counterparts, except those personalities are expressed through Westerosi gender norms. How would the family dynamics change, and how would the political dynamics change because of the switch?





	1. Arry I

**Author's Note:**

> I've always played with doing a full gender swap, but I never really had the gumption. Then I saw this prompt, and decided it was a sign from Rhllor. Or the old gods. Or the Seven. Whatever. It was a sign, okay?

**ARRY I**

 

The day that Robert Baratheon came to Winterfell, Arry saw Samson’s face fall when he laid eyes on the Demon of the Trident. Arry understood why – this was not the Adonis of a man that his father had described when he told them all stories of his youth in the Eyrie. Samson had always clung to those stories: he wanted to be as honourable as their father, as strong as Robert Baratheon, as good as Jon Arryn. Joanna joked sometimes that he would find a good living as a singer, with so many dreams of nobility and war.

 

What Joanna didn’t say, but that Arry heard, was that in the songs that Samson so loved, there were no bastards. There was only courtly love, dashing knights. Any bastards in the stories were the villains, full of lust and treachery. Joanna wasn’t like that, but Samson didn’t understand their sister. Or, as he always said with his nose in the air, their _half_ sister. Arry didn’t care that Joanna wasn’t mother’s daughter, or that she was born out of wedlock: she was quick, and clever, and she always cheered Arry on in the practice yard.

 

As the king struggled to dismount, Arry turned around to look at Joanna: she winked at him, her grey, solemn eyes sparkling for a moment, before motioning for him to turn back around. Arry wished that she could stand beside the rest of them, instead of being forced into the back of the party. He knew Robyn felt the same way: Joanna and she had been as thick as thieves ever since they were babes, and it was a rare occurrence to see one without the other. Where Joanna was shy around people she didn’t know, Robyn was bright and lovely and loud, but with Joanna she didn’t need to say anything at all: it annoyed Arry, sometimes, how they seemed able to speak to one another only with looks.

 

His mind was brought back to the present by his father and the king laughing together, embracing each other like brothers. King Robert then moved onto Arry’s mother, and called her _Cat,_ something that Arry was sure wasn’t entirely appropriate. It made him like the king more, especially as he saw a muscle jump in Samson’s cheek at the impropriety. Then it was Samson’s turn: he got a firm handshake from the king, and Arry supposed the large man still had a strength about him, as Samson winced slightly at his grip. Then the king came to Arry. “And who is this?” he boomed, Arry told him, raising his chin proudly. “You’re the image of your father when he was the same age!”

 

The king’s words made Arry grin, and he deliberately met Samson’s eye, and saw his brother was smarting. It had always bothered Samson, to a degree, how Arry had the Stark look whilst the Stark heir didn’t. It was one of the few things that Arry had over Samson: Samson was handsome, articulate, polite, pious, studious and a great rider and jouster. In the south, he would be the perfect heir: the only thing Arry was better at than Samson was fighting. Oh, Samson wasn’t bad – he had the height and the structure for fighting, and he had the best tutor in Ser Rodrik – but he didn’t enjoy fighting. He was more comfortable playing the high harp; Arry though, Arry was passionate about swordplay. He spent hours drilling every day, because he knew he could be _good._ And he was – he was quick, even if he wasn’t as strong as Samson yet, and he could run circles around Ser Rodrik. He’d even beaten him a few times.

 

Next in line was Robyn: her dark red hair was tied in a love knot, and she curtseyed properly, allowing the king to place what looked like a rather sloppy kiss on the back of her hand. “What a beauty,” he praised, and to Robyn’s credit, her sedate smile didn’t falter. If Arry hadn’t known how much she despised being complimented on her looks over her intelligence, he would have said she was flattered. She did subtly brush her hand on her dress once the king had safely moved onto Brianna and Rykann, and Arry had to glance to the floor to hide his smile. Brianna managed to curtsey fairly deeply, and even recovered fairly well from it – she had always been limber, she’d been climbing before she could walk, but Arry had thought she’d stumble for a moment. Rykann hid behind the Septa’s skirts, but the king just laughed good naturedly. Arry resisted the urge to tell him that it was the quietest Rykann had been for moons.

 

“Ned!” The king called to her father, “Take me to your crypts! I wish to pay my respects.”

 

The queen, whose expression looked like she had just sucked on a lemon, immediately protested. “My love, it’s been a long journey. The dead can wait.”

 

The king didn’t even react her words. “Ned.” He said again, firmer this time, and Arry’s father bowed to the queen and the princes and princess before guiding the king to the crypts. Mother was left to finish the introductions: Prince Joffrey made Arry’s skin crawl, even if Samson seemed perfectly happy to accept his leering at Robyn, Princess Myrcella seemed quite fun with her bouncy curls and bright smile, and Prince Tommen struck her as a bit soft, and not just because he was a chubby child.

 

The welcoming party eventually dispersed: mother was leading the queen and her two younger children to their chambers, Samson was following Prince Joffrey like a lost puppy, Brianna was probably already on her way to the godswood to climb and Joanna and Robyn were clustered close together, whispering. Out of the corner of Arry’s eye, he saw Theon Greyjoy skulk in the corner, watching the two of his sisters. Arry didn’t like Theon: he didn’t know if anyone did. Robyn had looked like she was willing to be friendly with him when he first arrived, but he made the critical mistake of insulting Joanna and making her cry. Ever since, Robyn had been the coldest of all of them to the ward. Sometimes, Arry forgot he was even part of the household; he barely ate with them, preferring the company of the whores of Wintertown, and as the years passed he spent more and more of his time drowning his sorrows in his cups.

 

.

 

That night at the feast, Arry had just about escaped having to walk in with a partner from the royal household: as his father was accompanying the queen, and the king was accompanying mother, the children had also been put in pairs. Samson and Myrcella had been paired up, although Myrcella looked a bit uncomfortable as Samson went on and on about how much he wanted to go South and how wonderful it must all be – Arry couldn’t help feeling insulted on behalf of the North, as the heir to Winterfell was acting as if it wasn’t the finest of all the kingdoms. Similarly, Joffrey and Robyn walked in with their arms linked, Robyn’s neutral expression of polite interest encouraging the prince to talk about himself – Arry pitied her, but wouldn’t take her place if she begged. The only couple of children who seemed to genuinely be getting on was, surprisingly, Brianna and Tommen. They were involved in animated conversation, the topic of which seemed to change every few minutes.

 

At least someone was having fun, Arry thought moodily. Usually he sat with Joanna at dinner time, but Joanna had to sit at the lower tables. At least she was among friends: Beth Cassel and Jeyne Poole were surely better company than Prince Joffrey, who still had not stopped talking, with Samson occasionally adding comments: _how wonderful you are, Prince Joffrey, may I lick your boots, Prince Joffrey, I’d love to fawn over you at court, Prince Joffrey._ Alright, Arry may be overexaggerating a _bit_ , but not much. Before he can think better of it, Arry loads up his spoon with a dumpling liberally dipped in gravy and takes aim at Samson, or more specifically, his crisp white doublet that is just asking to be ruined. Just as he’s about to release his projectile, Robyn sends him a warning look, and Arry dismantles his trebuchet with a sigh.

 

Everything is very boring and routine until halfway through the second course – steak pie with rosemary – as everyone is getting steadily drunker, and louder, and Arry is just wondering if she could get away with having another cup of the Dornish red that the royal party had brought with them when King Robert’s voice cuts above the noise, turning every head in the room. He’d dismounted from the high table a few songs ago, to mingle with the people of Winterfell whilst joining in with the chorus of _A Cask of Ale,_ his eyes and hands wandering over women who were not his wife, seemingly indiscriminate.

 

But now – now his eyes were fixed upon one woman, and one woman alone. “Lyanna!” He had bellowed at the top of his lungs, gaze unmoving from Joanna, who sat very, very still, like a frightened deer – if she moved, the hunt would begin. Arry began to stand up, not sure what he’d do but he knew he’d do something. Nobody, not even the king, could make Joanna shake like that.

 

The king was still talking, Arry realised, the white hot anger had been flushing the words out but he came back to the present: _you can’t be her, but gods be damned, look at you. Just as beautiful. Lyanna, Lyanna, my lady love. Tell me your name. Sweet thing..._

The queen was white, simmering with rage. Her twin brother, the golden kingslayer, seemed to be in much the same condition: his hand was on his sword, his knuckles white. In the end, Arry’s own father stood. “Robert!” he called, as if the hall wasn’t as silent as a tomb, “Come, sit with me! Let us talk of our boyhood, it has been too young.”

 

The king turned to father as if in a dream, “Can’t you see her?” he whispered, but the hall was so quiet that everyone could hear his words. “Am I dreaming her?”

 

“Robert,” Arry’s father said again in a dangerous, low voice that he usually only used when he was very, very angry with Arry, “you go too far.” Behind the king, Joanna slowly began to move, in increments, slowly, so slowly swinging her legs around the bench and standing up, before backing away towards the great double doors.

 

King Robert, somehow now realises how tense the room is. He looks around, at all the frozen faces, and turns back to Joanna, who makes a break for the door. “Wait!” he calls, but she’s already gone, and Arry lets out a sigh of relief.

 

His father has stood, any tolerance for the king gone. He strides down the hall in large strides, eyes like daggers, and he takes the king by one arm. Samson gasps. As if that’s the most scandalous thing that’s happened tonight. “You have had too much,” his father grits out, before practically dragging the king back to the high table.

 

“Oh Ned, you’ve always been such a bore,” the king grumbles, before turning to the silent feast hall, “Isn’t this a feast? Minstrels! Your king wants music!”

 

The spell breaks. The singers all launch into too-quick intros, the common people of Winterfell try and go back to their conversations. The high table is still quiet though, and the king calls for more wine, the sole voice among either of the two households. Arry had found the king to be at least amusing and boisterous before: now, he was as bad as Joffrey from his point of view. Despite his mother’s glare, he threw back his chair and jogged out of the hall, determined to find his favourite sister, and tell her just that.


	2. Joanna I

**JOANNA I**

 

Arry finds her first. For all that Joanna hadn’t wanted anyone to see her crying, she welcomes Arry into the cold of the Broken Tower, and he snuggles up by her side, warm and soft like a living blanket. Ghost is at her other side, and the two of them make her feel almost cozy, for all that her breath is turning to steam in front of her eyes.   _ Stark and Snow,  _ she thinks, as her brother curls around her and starts rambling about his sword lessons with Ser Rodrik, trying to take her mind off what had just happened. Joanna loves him fiercely for it.

 

King Robert had looked right at her. Joanna doesn’t know why it scares her so much, that after years and years of eyes skipping over her, that the king had seen her. Perhaps she had managed to trick herself into thinking she was invisible, or as good as; she dressed in dull, dark colours, blended into the stone walls. 

 

Where Robyn was dressed in the red and blue of her mother’s house, Joanna was garbed in blacks and browns and greys. It had been that way for as long as she could remember, and why shouldn’t it be so? She was the bastard, the stain on Eddard Stark’s honour. The young lordlings and knights who trekked to Winterfell came for Robyn’s attention, Robyn’s hand. Joanna was never going to marry well: she was probably never going to marry at all. Too low a house would be an insult to the Starks, but no lord would ever want a Stark bastard at his side when he could have the eldest, trueborn beauty.

 

But King Robert - her father’s dearest friend, lord of the seven kingdoms, a married man - had seen her. And more than that… more than that… he had seen someone else in her.

 

_ Lyanna, my lady love.  _ Joanna knows the story of her aunt, the whole terrible ordeal that began the rebellion in the first place; stolen away from her family by the dragon prince, raped, and left for dead after the war was won. Her statue in the crypts had always intrigued Joanna, perhaps because she was the only woman down in the depths of the crypts, where usually only the kings of winter were interred. She had been a woman to inspire devotion, that much was certain; in her father, in the king, in the mad prince. 

 

But nobody had ever said they shared a striking similarity before that night. The king was seeing things, he had to be - Lyanna had been beautiful. Beautiful and highborn and legitimate. Joanna was just a bastard, with her father’s long face and plain features. Her mother had left nothing of herself in Joanna, for all that she wished she had. Joanna wouldn’t care, even if she had a whore’s face, as long as there was something. Anything.

 

Arry had fallen silent, Joanna realised suddenly. She looked down at him, and saw he had been looking at her with their father’s eyes. “Jo?” Arry said her name like a question.

 

“Yes?”    
  
“You know that- that if anything happened, anything at all, that I’d protect you, right? I know I’m not very big, but I’m fast, and nobody could touch you. Not even the king. I swear it.”

 

Emotion rises in Joanna’s throat, quicker than she could have imagined, and her vision blurs. “Oh Arry,” she said thickly, putting her arms around her little brother, “I know. I know, little brother.”

 

Arry, she realises, hadn’t been fooled by the dull clothes and shadows she disappeared into. How could she have ever thought so? No one, no one except perhaps Robyn, had been such a loyal and steadfast companion. So what if she never married, so what if Lady Stark hated her more with every passing day, so what if the king himself had humiliated her in front of the entire court - she had Arry’s love, and that was all she needed.

 

Her brother returned the hug with a squeeze, his cold nose making her gasp as he burrowed into her neck. Joanna couldn’t say how long they stayed like that, but long enough that Arry’s breathing evened out and his embrace went slack. “Past your bedtime,” she murmurs as she rises unsteadily, Arry’s wiry frame just about light enough for her to carry. “You’re really getting too big for me to carry you,” she says to Arry, who snuffles against her chest but doesn’t wake, his face relaxed in sleep. 

 

Thankfully, the feast seems to have come to an end - the Great Hall’s braziers are still burning, that much she can see through the frosted windows, but the music and noise has dropped to almost nothing. Arry’s chambers are, thankfully, only a short way away from the Broken Tower, and she only encounters a couple of servants she doesn’t know, who barely glance her way.  _ I am invisible again,  _ she thinks gratefully. The king was so deep in his cups that he won’t even remember tonight by the morn, and she can avoid him for the rest of the visit - it won’t be difficult. Joanna finds herself oddly thankful that she won’t be sitting at the high table now.

 

She opens the door as quietly as she dares - due to Winterfell’s guests, she knows that Samson and Arry and Greyjoy will be sharing a chamber - officially, anyway. She can’t imagine that Greyjoy will be sleeping anywhere other than the winter town brothel. The dim light from the hallway shows her suspicions are correct - Samson’s auburn hair pokes out from one side of the bed, the other side empty. She lowers Arry down onto the featherbed, and goes to tiptoe out the door when she hears her name.

 

Joanna turns, and sees Samson rubbing his eyes. “Joanna,” he mumbles again, “wha’s goin’ on?”

 

“Nothing,” she whispers across the room, “go back to sleep.”

 

Samson stares at her for a moment, before sliding back under the covers. In the dark, his Tully-blue eyes look like sapphires. “The prince asked about you.”

 

Joanna feels ice flush through her veins. “Why?” she asks, stomach churning with dread.

 

“B’cause of the king, ‘course. The queen was so angry and Joff wanted to know why his father made such a fuss over a bastard. I did tell him you weren’t anything special, but he still wants to see you. Why’d you have to mess it all up?”

 

Joanna swallows. “I’m sorry, Samson. I-” Joanna doesn’t know what to say.  _ I’m sorry? I’m sorry I was born, I’m sorry I was there, I’m sorry that I look too Stark. I didn’t mean to? I didn’t mean to exist, I didn’t mean to catch his eye. I never wanted this? All I wanted was to be trueborn. All I wanted was to have one good night. _ None of it comes out, sounding too bitter inside her mind. Samson wouldn’t understand it. She barely understands it herself, these feelings of guilt and anger and ambition churning inside her. “Goodnight.” She says instead, and closes the door before the first tear falls on her already puffy face.

 

She walks away from the boy’s room, her heart in her boots. 

 

_ Why’d you have to mess it all up? _


End file.
